Interview with Vickie Russell Bell Yoga for Parkinsons Disease Rerun

by Baxter

In October, we were fortunate to have long-time yoga teacher and yoga writer Richard Rosen contribute a post about his personal journey with Parkinson’s Disease and the recommendations he has for working with the condition (see Yoga and Parkinson's Disease, Part 1). This month, I am pleased to share with you an interview with another yoga teacher, Vickie Russell Bell, who has been involved in serving the Parkinson’s community for several years now. You can learn more about her teaching here. 

Baxter: Vickie, I know that you have been offering a Parkinson’s Yoga Class at Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland for some time now. How did that come about, and what’s the class like?

Vickie: I’ve been teaching a yoga class for people with Parkinson’s Disease (PWPD) for a little more than three years now. I started off assisting Richard Rosen, teaching about 8-10 students, and then took over leading the classes. I now offer two classes weekly through a local organization called PD Active! In a given week there are usually 12-18 participants per class. These students have varying physical abilities. I have two assistants helping in each class.

As Richard Rosen stated in a previous post about PD (see Yoga and Parkinson's Disease, Part 1): it is a progressive degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. Common physical symptoms are loss of muscular flexibility (PWPD become very stiff), loss of balance, loss of strength and often a noticeable resting tremor. Sometimes people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s are in denial, resentment or rejection of their condition. PD affects the body, mind and spirit and needs to be looked at holistically. Asana practice done regularly can help students to cultivate and refine their body awareness so as to work productively with some of these symptoms.

My students with Parkinson’s definitely need extra attention during classes. I attempt to adapt what I’m teaching in my public classes that week for the classes (for example, Downward Dog with hands on a chair seat, Warrior I with the front knee supported by a block and the wall, Bakasana (Crane pose) lying on the back). Often in class there is an extra emphasis on keeping the feet stretched, open and supple to increase awareness of the base, on balance, on opening the upper back/chest/lungs, and on restorative poses (PWPD are often taking various medications that can make them fatigued or affect sleep adversely).

Baxter: Can you share with our readers any observations of the benefits your students have discovered by regular attendance in your class?

Vickie: I can do even better! Here is some testimonial directly from one of mty PD Active yoga students:

“The yoga exercise class has helped me immensely and I feel it is due mostly to stretching of the muscles. Parkinson’s causes atrophy in our muscles and the yoga exercises are a direct hit against that atrophy. I walk straighter and breathe properly when I walk now. Learning to breathe properly in the yoga class has helped my freezing of feet problem as well. When my feet freeze now I stop, breathe, relax and off I go again. Before, I would go into panic mode, struggle and usually fall. I have had fewer falls since I started the yoga class. I used to fall about three times a week and now it is about twice a month and that’s usually due to my own inability to breathe properly and stay relaxed. Yoga has added to the quality of my life.”

Baxter: In Richard’s post, he mentioned the benefits of supported backbend over a bolster. Where do you see that pose fitting in, and what are two or three other essential poses you find helpful for your classes?

Vickie: I often incorporate the backbend over a bolster that Richard described in my classes. My students also love supported twists over a bolster as well as a Viparita Karani variation. Legs up the Wall is difficult for many Parkinson’s students due to tight hips and hamstrings, and rounded upper backs. So this is how I teach the Viparita Karani variation:

Fold two long, single fold blankets (Shoulderstand size in half long ways) and place them on the floor in front of a chair seat. Have the student sit with their tailbone right on the front edge of the blankets and lie back so that the blankets are perpendicular to the spine and support the lumbar curve and back of the pelvis. Some PD students may need help lying back safely, or may need help adjusting the blankets. The student then hooks the back of their knees on the front edge of the chair seat, resting the calves on the seat. If your student has a rounded upper back they might benefit from a lift under their head so that the chin and forehead are on the same level. Here's a photograph from one of my classes of a student in the pose:

Viparita Karani variation (also called Easy Inverted pose)

This pose allows the low back (lumbar spine) to have a neutral curve or for some a slight backbend and allows the shoulders and chest to gently open. This can be a delicious pose for someone who spends most of their day with the head and shoulders hunched forward! I also teach PWPD adaptations of many standing poses and other beneficial active poses.

Tune in tomorrow for the second half of Baxter's interview with Vickie Russell Bell, in which she will talk about how to teach students with Parkinson's Disease.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect 

Is Yoga Really Dangerous for Men Rerun

by Timothy

Science reporter William Broad, who a year ago woke the proverbial sleeping (downward facing) dog of the yoga world with his NY Times Magazine article How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body, is back at it. This time he's claiming—based on a review of injury statistics—that men are at much greater risk of serious injury from yoga (see Wounded Warrior Pose). The claim may or may not be true, but I don’t think you can really tell from the data he presents. I plan on writing more about this topic in my next email newsletter, but wanted to respond to Nina's query for the blog today.

Man in Unwounded Warrior 3 Pose by Nina Zolotow

As Broad makes clear in his book, The Science of Yoga (from which the first Times yoga article was excerpted), the subject of his inquiry is the physical practice of yoga as found in most classes. He’s not talking about meditation, chanting, selfless service or spiritual development. Even so, styles of asana practice, different teachers and classes vary enormously. It’s my feeling that Broad's failure to account for these differences could entirely explain his findings.

Back when I was taking a lot of classes of different styles (which I'm not doing anymore, so if things have changed I’d love to get feedback from readers), I found that in the more meditative and restorative classes, I was often one of the only males in the room. But in some of the more vigorous and acrobatic classes, the gender split was closer to even. Thus, men having a higher incidence of yoga injuries could simply be a reflection of their favoring the kinds of classes where injuries seem more common, and not actually reflect any greater vulnerability to injury.

It is also my experience (and that of most yoga teachers I’ve spoken with) that people who are more flexible are generally at greater risk of injury, particularly for injuries like hamstring muscle tears, and overstretching of the ligaments. It varies from person to person obviously, but on average men are much stiffer than women, and seemingly less prone to these types of injuries.

Many yoga injuries—again based on my experience, since we lack data—happen when people are trying too hard to achieve a particular result. Your foot won’t go into Lotus pose, for example, so you pull a little harder to get it into position, and in the process tear ligaments in your knee. But before that happens, the body almost always gives warning signs, such as pain or strained breathing. If you decide to ignore them and power your way through, problems may result. Both men and women can do this, but if I had to guess I’d say men are more likely to, so in this way may be at higher risk.

William Broad loves to create controversy. Beyond claiming that yoga can wreck your body, he has also written that yoga can make you fat, and that the entire practice started out as a sex cult (neither of which is true). Statistically speaking, if Broad’s analysis is correct (and given the methodological problems in how he did his analysis—see Is Yoga Really Dangerous for Men? Dr. Ram Rao Weighs In—I don't think we can know), men may indeed be at higher risk of injuries when practicing asana, but this may miss a larger truth. My guess is that if a man practices less demanding forms of yoga, or any style of yoga in a less aggressive and more mindful way, that his risk probably isn’t any greater than that of a woman, and may even be less. Uh oh, there’s a potential future headline for Mr. Broad: Women at Greater Risk of Yoga Injuries! You heard it here first….

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect